Cleary Gottlieb represented the underwriters, led by Morgan Stanley & Co. Incorporated, Banc of America Securities LLC, Credit Suisse Securities (USA) LLC, Merrill Lynch, Pierce, Fenner & Smith Incorporated and UBS Securities LLC, in MSCI Inc.’s $290 million initial public offering of 16,100,000 shares of Class A common stock (including exercise of the underwriters’ over-allotment option). The initial range of the offering price was increased by $2 to $16 to $18 per share because of demand and the offering priced on November 14 at $18 per share. On the first day of trading on the New York Stock Exchange, the stock closed at $26.10, representing a 45% increase from the IPO price. The offering closed on November 20.
Prior to the IPO, Morgan Stanley and Capital Group International, Inc. owned 96.6% and 3.4% of MSCI, respectively. In connection with the IPO, MSCI amended its certificate of incorporation to provide for a dual-class common stock structure of publicly traded Class A common stock and super-voting Class B common stock. Following the IPO, Morgan Stanley retained approximately 93% of the combined voting power and 81% of the economic interest in MSCI’s outstanding common stock.
MSCI is a leading provider of investment decision support tools to investment institutions worldwide. Its products are used worldwide by institutions investing in or trading equity, fixed income and multi-asset class instruments and portfolios. MSCI’s flagship products are the MSCI international equity indices and the Barra equity portfolio analytics. Its products are used in many areas of the investment process, including portfolio construction and optimization, performance benchmarking and attribution, risk management and analysis, index-linked investment product creation, asset allocation, investment manager selection and investment research. MSCI has more than 2,900 clients across 63 countries, including the 25 largest asset-management firms globally.